The Election date's set. The candidates are locked in. So what are the key issues in hand when it comes to childcare and working parents? What do we NEED, versus what are they promising?

The three key areas that need to be addressed are:

1. AVAILABILITY: Addressing the lack of availability for all children, especially those under 2. Guarantee of child care for all working parents with children from 12 months.
2. AFFORDABILITY: Making child care affordable for the average working parent
3. QUALITY: Sorting out the issue of quality of child care, which really means, health & safety, care and nurturing and how to stop the massively high turnover of staff by making child care attractive to potential and existing carers.

AVAILABILITY
Issues here are of course LACK OF, particularly in inner city areas where child care is most in demand, and specifically for the under twos (realistically this is 6m-24m age group).

What we'd like to see:

• More centres being opened in inner city areas
• More incentives to employers to open centres on site
• Planning departments to allow new / proposed child care centres to actually be built, quickly.
• Provide incentives to owners of unused/empty office space/buildings in inner city areas for use as child care centres.
• Schools with large playgrounds to look at putting child care centres within the grounds
• Guarantee child care to working/studying parents with babies from 12 months. Germany has just instigated a new law that says all children over 12 months are entitled to a child care place in their local community (parents can actually sue the council if it fails to provide a spot!).
• More flexibility in child care services including: wider eligibility for in-home care; allowing the use of nannies as "approved care" for shift workers or if you work irregular hours (e.g., nurses, police, etc) or you can prove you can't find a spot in regular care.

AFFORDABILITY
Yes the dreaded affordability issue. Costs are going up. Half the country doesn't even understand what the entitlements are and so a large portion of working parents don't actually claim.

Use our taxes wisely. Look at Norway. Yes they pay higher taxes, but their taxes are actually put back into the system, for the good of the people to actively encourage women back to work and to help working families.

• Simplify the system so everyone understands entitlements and take specific care of single parents who are struggling more than anyone
• Guarantee Child Care Rebate (CCR) as non-means tested at current levels
• Make Child Care Benefite (CCB) and CCR available to working parents that need to employ nannies because they are shift workers or work irregular hours (e.g., nurses, police, etc) or can prove they can't find a spot in regular care.

QUALITY
Actually from our surveys we know that most parents are quite happy with the quality of the child care their kids are getting. They aren't so concerned about curriculum and "education" at least not before the year before school. They are more concerned that their kids are happy and cared for in a safe and nurturing environment with educators / carers who want to be there and love their job.

• Years of tenure should be a consideration. We don't need everyone to be qualified. We just need educators to be motivated, caring individuals who love their job and feel appreciated. Happy carers = happy children.
• We need more educators and carers not fewer:
  • Encourage those who want to train officially and qualify for management and higher levels of qualification by subsidising or providing free on the job training.
  • Don't put pressure on or put out of a job those educators / carers who aren't geared for training or who aren't interested in management positions, but who simply love caring for kids.
• We need 15 hours per week guaranteed pre-school preparation in whatever form it may take in the year before going to big school.

So, what are the politicians promising?
Is there anything concrete, useful and comprehensible – or is it all rhetoric. We'll let you be the judges.

Below are outlined all the policies as featured in Women's Agenda recently.

These are about as clearly put and fuss-free as possible, in lay-parents' terms.

AVAILABILITY
A greater proportion of families reported difficulties with the cost of childcare in 2010 than in 2001.

Labor

• A means tested Child Care Benefit
• A non-means tested Child Care Rebate up to $7,500 (cap frozen until 2017)
• CCB and CCR applicable to out of hours school care (though lower rate of CCB for school-aged children)
• Additional funding to help parents on income support – mostly mothers – receive training and get the skills they need to move into work

Coalition

• Proposed Productivity Commission Inquiry into childcare. Terms of reference include daycare and in-home services including nannies and au pairs and the out of pocket costs of childcare.
• Ruled out means testing the Child Care Rebate
• Supports continuation of Child Care Benefit

Greens

• Proposed Productivity Commission Inquiry into child care funding and how rising costs can be addressed.
• Boost public funding to support a more generous and streamlined benefit/rebate payment to assist families, particularly those with special needs or in remote or regional areas.
• Support indexation of child care assistance payments to address current high costs.
• Pay all child care assistance directly to childcare centres to reduce the pressure on parents who may have to pay fees up-front and claim reimbursement.
• Proposed a generous Capital Grants Fund to assist new centres to open in high pressured areas meaning daily fees will have to stay competitive

AFFORDABILITY
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that childcare availability issues are greatest for families with children who are not yet at school and demand is set to increase.

Labor

• Field trials of flexible child care (including overnight and weekend care) with industry, business and child care operators to commence in July 2013
• Providing over $190 million in training support through waiving TAFE fees for diploma in children's service, introducing a recognition of prior learning program for early childhood educators and the HECS/HELP Benefit for Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood).
• Reviewing the Budget Based Funded child care program
• Commissioned research into how to increase supply of childcare and reduce red tape
• A $450million investment in out of school hours care at schools.

Coalition

• Proposed Productivity Commission Inquiry into childcare.
• Terms of reference include consideration of care in the "24 hour economy" (the hours parents work or study, or wish to study); subsidising nannies and the particular needs of rural, regional or remote parents, as well as shift workers
• Proposed to re-establish the Federal Planning and Advisory Commission to ensure that new services are approved on an as needs basis.

Greens

• Committed to access for all children aged 0 to 5.
• Increased financial assistance for child care centre programs that offer flexible hours and occasional care.
• Enhance flexibility by expanding the number of places in the in-home care scheme.
• Proposed Capital Grants of $200m over 4 years for community and not-for-profit centres to access funds expand and build new centres to reduce long waiting lists.
• Proposed a three year pilot of a Micro-Care Scheme, with Commonwealth funding, to help community childcare centres and collectives of local businesses and workplaces, to set up a quality long day care centre on site to provide care for children of employees.

QUALITY
Quality of care is vital as child care is increasingly focused on as a form of early childhood education

Labor

• Introduced the National Quality Framework to establish national standards for staffing levels and qualifications.
• Supported by assistance through the Early Years Quality Fund
• National Partnership Agreement on Early Childhood Education setting a goal for universal access to preschool for 15hrs per week for 40 weeks in the year before commencing school.
• $25 billion over the next four years to continue to pursue the Government's Early Childhood Agenda.
• Introduced the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) to help children to learn and develop through play and the Framework for School Aged Care to guide developmental programs in OSHC
• Published the quality ratings of child care services on the Government's MyChild website.

Coalition

• Proposed Productivity Commission Inquiry
• Terms of reference includes a reworking of the current national Quality Standards framework and the needs of at-risk or vulnerable children.
• Support the National Quality Framework in principle. Will work with the States to find practical ways to improve implementation.

Greens

• Committed to the roll out of the National Quality Framework and have called for more support for the sector as it faces deadlines for national quality standards.
• The Greens have said that quality child care includes having highly-trained and fairly remunerated staff in long day care centres
• Have announced a fully costed scheme to improve the comparative conditions for teachers in long day care and urgently attract more graduates.

WORKFORCE
Low pay, poor promotion prospects and arduous working conditions are critical challenges for the sector. There are concerns that ensuring childcare remains affordable may create an underclass of women workers.

Labor

• Established a Pay Equity Unit within the Fair Work Commission to look at wage levels across the whole children's services sector, including OHSC.
• Temporary funding of $3/hour wage increase for workers via the Early Years Quality Fund (EYQF). Only available to child care workers whose employers enter into an enterprise bargaining agreement. EYQF limited to $300m which is enough to fund pay increases for some workers (i.e., workers whose employers who lodged their applications first). Funded for 2 years only.
• Training support for staff.

Coalition

• Productivity Commission Inquiry to include consideration of extending support to care provided by nannies and au-pairs.
• Opposed the mechanism adopted to deliver pay increases through Enterprise Bargaining Agreements as they'd not apply to all workers. Pay issues should be addressed through making a case to the Fair Work Commission.
• No mention of working conditions for existing workforce.

Greens

• Workers in the industry should be fairly remunerated for the work they do. Pay rate should reflect the skill and importance of the work. Improved professional development opportunities should be made available for all workers. Lifting wages will lift quality.
• Have expressed concern that the Early Years Quality Fund wage rise does not cover all early childhood educators.
• Expressed full support of the Fair Work Australia Pay Equity unit for child care educators and expect that improving wages across the sector will be a key focus in the next parliament.
• Recognising the teacher shortage, launched a policy initiative in early 2013 that would waive the HELP fees of recent graduates from early childhood teaching degrees, so that for every year they stay in the long day care workforce, a year of their HELP debt would be removed.